In Spite of It All
by GoingVintage
Summary: Puck and Quinn meet at the Dairy Queen, have a long-overdue conversation and come to an understanding after Beth is gone from their lives. Oneshot.


**Author's Note: This is my very first non-Puckleberry story. Please be kind...**

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Three weeks after school lets out – and a little over three weeks since _she _left their lives – Quinn sends him a text message. It's simple and to the point: _[Meet me? Dairy Queen. 2pm.] _ Her hands shake when she sends it because she's not sure he's even going to show up. And even though he doesn't answer, she goes anyway and finds a little booth in the back corner where she can see the door. As she sits there waiting, she realizes that she's not sure he's actually in town because she hasn't seen him since the last day of school. He smiled at her while he and Mr. Schue sang during "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" but after it was over and everyone was leaving, he tucked his guitar back into its case, slung it over his shoulder, and disappeared from the room. Since that day, Quinn's spent a lot of time thinking about him. She's almost called him more than once but every time she picks up the phone, she puts it right back down again. Thats why it took three weeks just to send the message. She has so much she needs to say but it seems impossible, after all that has happened, to even figure out where to start.

Quinn watches the clock flip from 1:55 to 1:56 on the little screen of her silver cell phone and she thinks about her situation. Since summer break began, she's spent a lot of time helping her mom around the house as an excuse to reconnect with her again. The entire time she'd been gone, first at Finn's house and then at Puck's and finally ending up at Mercedes', she'd blocked out the pain of how much she'd needed her mother. Being home again, now that it's just the two of them, is nice. Her mom seems more relaxed and more open without her father around. Sometimes, they sit cross-legged out on the couch and eat Chinese out of the carton while they watch reality television. Other times, when her mom hears her crying in the middle of the night, she slips into the darkened room and climb under the covers, stroking her daughter's hair and whispering, "it's okay, Quinny" over and over again until she falls asleep. Quinn has found herself putting into practice the forgiveness she'd heard about so frequently in church all those years. And surprisingly, it's easier than she thought it would be.

At exactly 2pm, when Quinn is watching a rivulet of water slide down the side of her Diet Coke cup, the door to the DQ opens and Puck walks in. Quinn looks up at him and watches as he makes his way toward her in a pair of cargo shorts, a black t-shirt, and some flip-flops. He looks suntanned and she can see the lines on his face from where he's obviously been wearing sunglasses a lot. When he gets to her table, he shoves his hands into his pockets and grins at her. "Hey," he says.

"Hi, Puck. I wasn't sure you'd come." They stare at one another long enough for the silence to become uncomfortable and Quinn finally says, "You can sit down if you want," while motioning toward the empty bench.

Puck drops into the seat and leans back, throwing his arm across the hard plastic edge. She feels his eyes travel over her body and then up to her face and he smiles a nervous, half-smile. "How're you doin'?" he finally asks.

She takes a sip of her Diet Coke and shrugs her shoulders. "As okay as I can be, I guess. I'm readjusting to life at home. And it's weird without Daddy there."

"Have you seen him?"

Quinn nods, thinking back to the week before when her father stopped by briefly to get a few things out of his office. He'd spoken in short sentences to her and had barely looked her in the eye. "Just once. And he hardly spoke to me. Didn't ask me about the baby or anything...it's like I was never pregnant and he didn't kicked me out. I can tell that he's still _so_ ashamed of me." Quinn chokes on the words because even though she's still furious about how her father treated her, a part of her understands why he reacted the way he did. His religious and political affiliation, which were nearly-constant sources of conversation in the Fabray household, guided every aspect of their lives. And even though she was heartbroken when she got kicked out, she knew that she had failed him as a daughter. But now? Now he was living with a woman 15 years his junior who ran Lima's tattoo parlor. That hardly represented the moral values that he'd shoved down her and her sister's throat all those years. Now, Quinn just felt sorry for him for being so hypocritical and not even seeing it.

"Fuck him," Puck offers, his voice pulling Quinn's thoughts from her father.

Quinn meets his eyes and Puck repeats himself. "Seriously, fuck him for acting that way. He's not perfect, obviously, so how the hell can he expect you to be?"

"I don't know, really," Quinn says softly. "But mom has been great. She's apologized and she would've-" Quinn's breath catches and then she tries again. "-and she would've welcomed the baby home...had I wanted to keep her."

Quinn sees Puck's jaw clench and her eyes instantly fill with tears. As much as it hurts, _this _is one of the reasons why she wanted to see him in the first place.

"Puck?" she begins. Her voice is weak, as weak as she feels. "Do...do you think about her much?"

Puck stares at the beaten, worn yellow table and his eyes follow the scrapes and scuffs brought on by years of hungry patrons. When he finally answers Quinn, his voice is low. "Every fucking day. Probably a hundred times a day."

Quinn takes a gulp of air because his admission cuts straight through to her heart. She sees the vulnerability and the sadness in his eyes and she feels _so guilty _for causing it. "I think about her, too."

Puck seems to shift in his seat and his eyes fall on Quinn's face. "Is it horrible that I spend part of the time regretting giving her up? And then being pissed at you for making me give her up? And then the other half of the time, I'm relieved because I'm fucking 16-years-old and I can't possibly raise a baby, even if I had your help and pretty much the help of the entire fucking town."

Quinn blinks a few times, her eyes burning. "I'm the same," she admits. "I can't tell you how hard it was to sign those papers and give her to Shelby. I only held her for a few moments but I love her, Puck. I do. I'll love her for the rest of my life." For some reason, she needs him to believe her when she tells him this.

"D'you—d'you think Shelby will tell her about us?" Puck asks. His eyes are dark and shiny and Quinn isn't sure she's ever seen so much pain there before.

"I do, Puck. Shelby told me that she would tell her all about us when the time was right. And she's going to send us pictures of her as she grows up. So in a way, we'll get to see her grow up, too."

"When you get them, can I see them?"

Quinn shakes her head quickly. "Absolutely. She's your daughter, too."

The two sit in silence for a few moments, both thinking of the wide-eyed baby who'd unexpectedly come in the middle of Regionals and forever changed them. "How do we move on?" Puck finally asks.

"Move on?" Quinn questions, unsure of what he means.

Puck runs his open palm across his short hair and meets her eyes. "Move on from missing her, from regretting everything that happened, from wondering how the hell I go back to being the me I was before she was born? I don't feel like _that _me anymore, Quinn. I'm...it's different now, ya know?"

Quinn shakes her head vigorously. "I do know, Puck, I do. I wonder, when school starts again, if I'm going to try out for the Cheerios again or if I'll even care. I wonder if I can go back to being the carefree girl I was before. It's like...it's like I've already lived an entire adulthood and I'm still the same age I was before I'd even lived at all."

Puck drops his hands on the table and his thumb runs across Quinn's cup, catching and collecting the liquid as it runs down the side. He swirls the water across the DQ logo and watches as the water spreads, the individual drops connecting to form a stream that streaks down and pools on the table. "So what now?" he finally asks. "Do you and I go back to ignoring each other like we did before that day or do we...Fuck, Quinn, where the hell do we start?"

Her breath catches in her throat because they're getting to the crux of it all. _Finally._ "Do you...do you still care about me?"

Puck looks at her, screwing up his brows into a furrow, and smiles. "I told you I did, Quinn, that day at the hospital."

Quinn reddens when she remembers his confession as they stood gazing at their sleeping daughter in the hospital nursery and then gives him a reassuring grin. "Well, I mean...we were both pretty emotional and I didn't know how serious you were but...If that's how you feel, maybe we could...I don't know..."

"Quinn?" Puck interrupts her, his brow arching in smug amusement. "Are you asking me out or something?"

Quinn smiles a little bigger. "Would you go if I did?"

Puck shrugs and grins at her as he drops his hand over hers on the table. "I mean, I could...Ya know, if I'm not busy doing something else or whatever."

Quinn bites her lip to keep from grinning too broadly and she lifts her head from looking at his hand over hers. "We're going to be okay, aren't we?"

"Yeah...Shit, Quinn...we'll be awesome." Puck looks around the tiny restaurant, obviously uncomfortable because they're venturing into "feelings" territory, and asks, "look, you want a Blizzard or something? I'm fucking starving."

"Uhh...yeah...a small Oreo Blizzard would be great."

"Cool...be right back." Puck slides out of the seat and goes up to the counter to order. Quinn watches his back as he orders and pays and then stands there waiting for his food. She feels like the Puck that she slept with nearly nine moths ago is still around but that he's somehow really different, too. He's still just as hot as he always was but he seems older and wiser now and she realizes that it's because of her. And Beth.

He comes back a few minutes later with a huge cheeseburger, onion rings, and two Blizzards. He pulls her Oreo Blizzard off the tray and drops it in front of her and it bounces once. They both lunge to make sure it doesn't fall over and then laugh. Puck sits down and dives into his food while Quinn sucks the ice cream off her spoon. She swirls her tongue against the cool, creamy concoction as she watches him devour the greasy cheeseburger and for the first time in months, she feels a little bit lighter. The past isn't gone and it isn't any different than it was five minutes ago but maybe, despite the cheating and the hurt and the lies and the baby and the loss of it all, tomorrow won't be as bad as yesterday.


End file.
